“Roll swiftly to the spirits’ land, thou mighty stream and free!
Father of ancient waters,[349] roll! and bear our lives with thee!
The weary bird that storms have toss’d would seek the sunshine’s calm,
And the deer that hath the arrow’s hurt flies to the woods of balm.
“Roll on!—my warrior’s eye hath look’d upon another’s face,
And mine hath faded from his soul, as fades a moonbeam’s trace:
My shadow comes not o’er his path, my whisper to his dream—
He flings away the broken reed. Roll swifter yet, thou stream!
“The voice that spoke of other days is hush’d within his breast,
But mine its lonely music haunts, and will not let me rest;